Despite the furore over hidden sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto very few people
were actually offended, according to details of the class action suit released
today.
Rockstar Games will only have to pay out to 2,676 game owners after it agreed
to settle a class action suit against it for including soft-core pornographic
sex scenes that could only be accessed by installing a software tweak dubbed Hot
Coffee.
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In total the company, and its parent Take-Two Interactive, will have to pay
around $35,000 to settle the claims, with individuals being refunded the cost of
the game and getting a sanitised version. By contrast they will have to pay over
$1.3 million in fees to the lawyers who bought the case.
“There are two possibilities,” Theodore H. Frank, who directs the Legal
Center for the Public Interest at the American Enterprise Institute, told the
New York Times.
“Possibility one is they have a meritorious lawsuit and they’re selling out
the class for attorneys’ fees. The other possibility is that, and frankly I
think this is the more likely possibility, they brought a meritless lawsuit that
had no business being brought to court at all.”
Lawyer who brought the class action suit against the companies have expressed
disappointment that so few people actually claimed against the company but said
that taking action was the right thing to do.
We can’t guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don’t care
Seth Lesser Lawyer
“Am I disappointed? Sure,” said Seth R. Lesser, lead lawyer for the
plaintiffs.
“We can’t guess as to why now, several years later, people care or don’t
care. The merits of the case were clear.”
The case arose after it was revealed that there was a hidden scene in the
game which could be accessed by user who downloaded a third party modification
and inserted it into the game’s software.
The discovery caused a storm around the world, despite the company releasing
a patch that blocked viewing of the scenes and scrubbing them from new versions
of the game.
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